Kaleidoscopes have been a popular novelty for many years and in the most usual version of the kaleidoscope there is a cylindrical chamber which carries bits of colored glass. One end of the chamber ordinarily includes a translucent window while the other end is enclosed by a clear window. The chamber is rotatably secured at the end of a reflecting tube which carries a pair of mirrors set at angles to each other. Light is passed through the cylindrical chamber and the bits of colored glass and reflected back and forth along the angled mirrors to an eye piece at the opposite end of the reflecting tube. Rotation of the chamber causes relocation of the glass and thereby provides continuously changing patterns.
Variations of the kaleidoscope have been provided such that the colors of the patterns are not exclusively by means of the colored glass bits but might be somewhat determined by a colored disc disposed in front of the translucent end of the cylinder. In such a variation the pattern is viewed in color but upon a background of substantially the same color.